


Kindling (Fickle Flame)

by Dan_Francisco



Category: Overwatch (Video Game), RWBY
Genre: Alternate Universe - Cold War, Alternate Universe - College/University, Chocolate, Drama, F/F, Heartbreak, Hurricane, Jerk With A Heart of Gold, Natural Disasters, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:40:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22577956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dan_Francisco/pseuds/Dan_Francisco
Summary: The hours are long. The lectures are boring. The tests stressed her out. As if all of that wasn’t bad enough, now Blake has to sit through history, focusing not on the stories of the nation, but on the conversation she had with her crush.She should have never come in today.
Relationships: Blake Belladonna/Elizabeth Caledonia Ashe
Comments: 4
Kudos: 5
Collections: Fanworks Club Monthly Prompts





	Kindling (Fickle Flame)

Blake found herself staring out the window, only half-listening to Professor Wilhelm droning on and on about the Second World War. The skies were heavy with dark gray clouds, a dreary dullness that matched her current mood. How she wished she could escape this life, fly like the birds she saw over Europe’s skies occasionally when she got the occasional chance to study abroad for a semester. After all, they could just take flight and run from their problems, so why couldn’t she? Only briefly, Blake looked back to the head of the room, tuning in only long enough to hear Professor Wilhelm raving about some hero of history that she couldn’t bother to remember the name of. He had started the lecture by saying to pay attention, that this would be on the test, but right now? The melancholy of Blake’s soul was the only thing that had her undivided focus. She sighed, rather dramatically come to think of it. Her heart ached, mostly because she couldn’t get her mind off of the debacle of the day. Blake had conjured up a fantastic plan – or at least, she _thought_ it was fantastic – to take the lead and finally get Lie Ren to notice her. The conversation played over and over in her head each time she dared to blink.

She had managed to catch Ren in the atrium of the common building, where L-shaped couches were nestled in corners. A square bulletin board dominated the center, providing a place for the school to post announcements and students to pin club membership offers and group meetups. The massive windows had, at that time of day, allowed a flood of light into the building, a perfect backdrop for her master plan. Unfortunately, Blake hadn’t counted on herself mumbling her words, stumbling over them like they were uneven stairs. Ren had listened politely and intensely, waiting for her to make sense, but even that came to a fiery crash when Nora Valkyrie charged in, tackling Ren to the ground. They played it off like it was nothing, but the signal was like a beacon in the night to Blake. There was never a ghost of a chance for her to fit into this gap, and as such she had abandoned the prospect and quietly shuffled away, retreating to the once-quiet classroom that now was filled with Professor Wilhelm’s voice regaling them with stories of valor and honor of dead men.

There was an overwhelming urge to cry, to push out these absurd feelings and let her frustrations out with the tears that would undoubtedly ruin her makeup. Professor Wilhelm stopped the class for a moment, stepping away to speak to Colonel Morrison. He was the commander of Greenfield’s ROTC cadets, a veteran of the Korean War that was rumored to have killed hundreds of people. Blake avoided him at all costs – his intense demeanor and strict manner pushed away almost everyone. She sighed again, letting her head slide down on the desk, propped up by her arms as the clouds rolled past. Her eyelids became heavy as her black hair began to slip over her face, and soon, she found herself drifting away to sleep. Maybe in her dreams, she could depart the tiny island that the Academy occupied, and forget about her life.

* * *

A clap of thunder woke her up with a start. The classroom, once bright with fluorescent lights, was now dark and foreboding. A note had been scrawled on the chalkboard in Professor Wilhelm’s handwriting – _Hurricane Watch, evacuate immediately_. Why had he written this down? How come nobody had woken her up? Maybe more importantly, if there was a warning, why weren’t the sirens going off? The severe weather sirens were always spooled up whenever there was even so much as a hint of inclement weather, so how come now, when the rain pounded at the windows and howling wind shook each piece of glass, she couldn’t hear them? The room’s darkness was only abated by the whispers of light from the campus’s walkway lights, showing that nearly everyone had left in a hurry.

Blake felt her chest tighten. She had been left behind, forgotten about and abandoned _again._ Every step she took felt heavy, knocking over forgotten bags and breaking dropped pencils. _Okay, don’t panic,_ she thought, immediately descending into a panic. _There has to be a way home._ Unfortunately, she couldn’t much think of one. She’d have to make her way off campus and to the bridge that would take her back to New York, and hope that she wasn’t too late. Blake cursed silently as she stumbled over chairs, making her way out the door and entering the hallways.

The hallways weren’t much better in terms of light than the classroom she had just left. The darkness was all-consuming, and at the far end she could see windows that felt a million miles away. The rain pounded the windows and roof like a malevolent water spirit that very much wanted her dead, or at the minimum soaked to her bone. She ran to the end of the hallway, spotting ghosts and horrors with every flash of lightning, but Blake had to remind herself she was seeing things. That was the only logical explanation, right? Her panic was just making her even more paranoid and afraid than she already was. Her steps echoed as she ran down the stairs, her shoes clapping against the linoleum that marked each step until it was replaced by the sound of rubber on marble, and soon she was in the atrium.

The lights from the campus walkways reflected off the massive glass front, showing streaks of rain that slid down and were replaced almost immediately by fresh ones. It sounded like someone had turned on a hose and forgotten about it, and each crack of thunder was louder than anything she had heard if her life. The thunder boomed and rattled her, even inside the atrium, with lightning casting long, cruel shadows that surely would sustain her nightmares for tonight. Well, she didn’t have much choice. The path to get back home would take her through the Science building if she wanted to stay at least relatively dry.

Blake heaved the doors open, the muffled sound of rain now taking its leave to be filled in by an overwhelming downpour. She kept running, ignorant to the mud spots that had now risen out of the brick path. Better to sprint to the next building than walk and get soaked. Thankfully, it was a straight shot across campus, ignoring a slight bend in the path that took her to the right. The trees looked like they were dancing without a care in the world, waving back and forth as the wind pushed so hard against her, it was like she could be knocked down at any second.

The glass doors of the Science building were just ahead of her. The power must have been out, since even at this time of night the aquariums and reptile displays were almost always lit up, but Blake could only see darkness as she approached the doors. Blake shoved on the doors, opening them with a bang as the rain returned to the muffled roar she had experienced in the common building. She panted, already out of breath from the sprint that had taken her from building to building. Unfortunately, Blake’s efforts at staying dry were already shot. She wiped away water from her hair, flicking it off her hands and shivering as the chill hit her. Well, her clothes were definitely soaked now. The only thing comforting her now was the knowledge that when she got home, she could change into something warm and soft, and slide into her bed to sleep this terrible day away.

Something crashed deep in the building, echoing in the empty halls. Blake froze, every fight or flight response in her body sending off panic alarms that she had to leave, _right now,_ and forget any idea of ever coming home safe. Despite this, her body refused to act, instead hoping that standing still and dripping water on the floor would make her immune to whatever nightmarish being was pursuing her. Slow footsteps soon followed the noise, with indistinct noises that Blake couldn’t place. Was it someone talking, or something else?

“Hello?” a voice called. It… _sounded_ friendly enough.

“Uh… hello?” Blake responded, her voice cracking.

The footsteps came closer to reveal a girl with stark white medium-length hair, her arms covered in tattoos. She wore a sweatervest combo with the sleeves rolled up, heavy boots on her feet. Blake couldn’t quite tell what color her eyes were, but they looked suspicious, like she could detect any lie or half-truth with them. She smiled when she saw Blake, waving a hand. “Howdy. Uh… did you kick open that door?”

Blake blinked. “Um… yeah. I… didn’t want to get too wet.”

The girl laughed, shaking her head. “Looks like you didn’t much succeed.” She had a twang to her voice – she definitely wasn’t from New York. Had Blake ever met her before? Probably not – the campus _was_ pretty big, and she liked to think she would remember someone like this.

“Yeah,” Blake admitted nervously, now relaxing enough to shake a bit more water off herself. “Hey, so, uh… there’s like, a hurricane watch. I’m heading to the bridge to go home, do… you wanna come with?”

“Hey, same here,” the girl said. “Yeah, I was about to head to the bridge when I heard you come crashing in.”

Blake smiled, heading with the girl to head out of the building. They passed through even more classrooms that looked as abandoned as the one Blake had left, each one darker than the last if that was even possible. In contrast to Blake’s visible anxiety, this girl seemed like she was as calm and collected as could ever be, walking with a confidence that Blake could only aspire to.

Once out of the Science building, they sprinted to the river’s edge, passing by the campus entrance building that had also been abandoned by the institution’s security team. It looked like even the venerable Mr. Reyes, head of campus security, had evacuated Greenfield and left it to its fate. Their mad dash through the rain took them down the haphazardly-built path to the river, narrowly avoiding slipping into thick, dark mud on either side. Eventually, though, they did manage to reach the river.

Except the bridge was out. It was as if it had been torn away from its very foundations, sharp splinters of wood jutting out from the edge of the riverbed like hellish toothpicks. The river, by now, had overflown and was raging with a fury that Blake had only seen out of Headmaster Ozpin, as clear a signal as anything else she had seen in her life. There was no chance they would escape this island tonight.

“No, no, no, no no no!” Blake yelled into the wind in vain. “How are we supposed to get out now?!”

“Okay, calm down,” the girl said, taking hold of Blake. “We’ll just have to stay the night here, alright? Let’s go back inside, dry off and figure something out there.”

“I can’t stay here,” Blake muttered. “There’s… no, I’m not doing it.”

The girl groaned, shaking her head. “Well, you’re gonna _have_ to, alright? Come on, we’re not staying out here.”

* * *

They returned to Blake’s classroom, since the smell of peroxide and other fluids Blake couldn’t identify were far too intoxicating and permanent in every room in the Science building. The girl cleared out some of the desks and together they made a little corner for themselves opposite of the windows, a place to rest and at least attempt to relax for the night as they shivered.

“So, I never actually told you,” the girl said out of the blue. “I’m Elizabeth Caledonia Ashe, but a lot of people just call me Ashe.”

“I’m Blake Belladonna. Uh… nice to meet you, um… Elizabeth.”

She winced, frowning almost immediately. “Just call me Ashe. Pretty much everyone else does.”

“Okay, uh, Ashe,” Blake said, feeling her cheeks heat up. Twice in one day she’d gone and fucked something up. How great.

Ashe sighed, running a hand through her still-wet hair. “So, here’s what I figure we can do. Nurse’s office has got to have some blankets. I can find one of the professor’s offices, and call up the people in town to help us out. We can dry off and stay here until they come. That sound alright to you?”

“Yeah,” Blake said, smiling. “I can find the blankets while you find the phone.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Ashe said, smiling back. Within a minute, she had taken off, touring the area. Blake wasted no time in going about her part of the quest, opening the door to the nurse’s office and finding some big, scratchy blankets inside. Must have been wool, or something similar, but it was better than nothing right now.

Blake returned to the classroom to find Ashe there as well, a dejected look on her face. She told Blake that all the professor’s offices were locked, and since she wasn’t much inclined to run through the rain to try phones in another building, they’d have to wait for morning and hope somebody would help them soon. But good news was, she claimed, she had found a guitar that somebody left behind.

“Can you play it?” Blake asked, confused.

“Sure I can! But hey, you got those blankets, right? I wanna dry off first, let’s warm up.”

She handed a blanket to Ashe, who immediately wrapped herself up in it. Blake did the same as well, wicking away water as she tried to dry herself off. The pair sat opposite of each other, doing their best to keep warm and find comfort in an inherently uncomfortable place.

“If you don’t mind me asking,” Blake said once they had settled in, “what were you doing here this late?”

Ashe looked surprised before nervously laughing. “Oh, well, I was doing some lab stuff after class. I guess I fell asleep or something, waiting on results.”

“They let you use the lab after hours?” Blake asked, confused. “Oh, wait, are you an upperclassman?”

“Yeah,” Ashe said. “One more year, then I’m out like a flash.”

Blake nodded, shaking as another wave of chills came over her. “Wow. I’m envious. You get to go soon. No more books, no more tests, no more Colonel Morrison…”

“Hey, it’s not all bad,” Ashe said, shrugging. “Your time’ll come soon. Just gotta deal with some bullshit.”

“Easy for you to say. You don’t have to deal with Colonel Morrison pulling inspections on all his cadets in the middle of class.”

Ashe laughed again, this time more actually joyful than anything else. She had a genuine smile on her face, brushing back strands of errant hair away from her face. With the glow of the light from the walkways, Blake could now see that Ashe had deep hazel eyes, like Professor Wilhelm’s desk when the light caught it just right. Maybe if she was under the right light, her eyes would turn red. “See, that’s the thing,” she said, “he always pulls that shit. He’ll do it right up until graduation.”

“Really?” Blake asked, a bemused laugh coming out of her mouth. “I didn’t think he was that intense.”

“Yup. Well, hey, you asked me, so I get to ask you. How’d you end up here so late at night?”

With one simple question, Ashe had unintentionally conjured up every imaginary stab to her heart, every bad feeling and emotion she had been avoiding all day. Blake’s own smile fell from her face as she swallowed hard, looking away from her new friend and nervously scratching her face. “Uh, well… I fell asleep too.”

“Sounds like more than that,” Ashe observed, a neutral look on her face. “Look, if you don’t wanna tell me, that’s fine, but I know you’re not being truthful with me.”

Blake sighed, trying to find _anything_ in the room that she could look at in order to avoid Ashe’s gaze. “I mean… I don’t know, it’s kind of stupid.”

“If it’s bothering you, then it ain’t stupid,” Ashe said, shrugging.

Something about the softness in Ashe’s voice, only marred by her accent that made each word just a little bit longer than it had to be, put Blake at ease. She blinked, looking at Ashe who only sat bundled up opposite of her, waiting for Blake to either drop the subject or start talking.

Well, it wasn’t like they had much else to do right now. Blake swallowed her anxiety, a pensive sigh slipping out. “Well… I… kind of had a crush on this guy, and.. I guess he has a girlfriend already. I mean, saying it out loud, it sounds really stupid, but I just wanted something nice, you know?”

Ashe listened to her, without even a hint of emotion on her face. Finally, she shrugged again, looking up at her. “Yeah, that sucks. I get what you’re feeling. A lot of folk think I’m some bitch, on account of my tattoos and the trouble I got into last year.”

“Last year?” Blake asked, tilting her head.

Ashe chuckled, nervously pushing her hair back again. “Oh, you didn’t hear? Boyfriend – _ex-_ boyfriend, actually – got a bit handsy with me. Well, I didn’t much like that, so I took Daddy’s ol’ reliable baseball bat and broke those hands. He pressed charges, I got locked up, and I nearly lost my place here over it.”

“Wait, I remember hearing about that,” Blake said, shocked. “I’m surprised they let you stay here.”

“Money talks,” Ashe said, a wry smile crossing her face. “Hey, so, I know it ain’t much, but… I did manage to find this while I was looking for a phone.”

Ashe dug through her pocket, handing Blake a Hershey’s Kiss. The tiny piece of chocolate landed in her hand, and she stared down at it, confused. “A Hershey’s Kiss?”

“Yeah, like I said, it ain’t much. I know how much being rejected sucks, and… well, hey, chocolate always helped me out.”

Blake smiled, looking up at Ashe. “Thanks,” she said, unwrapping the candy and popping it in her mouth. Almost immediately, it started melting, the milk chocolate washing over her tongue and, oddly enough, warming her up like she had actually been kissed. “Where’d you even find that, anyway?”

“One of the professors keeps them around, or somebody went to the offices and dropped them off. I don’t know, either way I don’t think they’ll miss it.” Ash unwrapped herself from the blanket, apparently having decided she was dry enough. She headed over to the guitar, picking it up and testing the strings.

“Hey, so you said you can play that, right?” Blake asked. “What songs do you know?”

Ashe got a mournful look on her face, and she continued to test the strings one by one with minor tuning taking place. “I really only know the one. Daddy taught me a lot of them, but… well, just one stuck, I guess. It doesn’t much make me popular at parties.”

Blake tilted her head, looking at her curiously. “What is it?”

“You sure you want me to sing it?” Ashe asked, arching an eyebrow at her. “It’s pretty sad.”

“I think I can handle sad,” Blake said, smiling. “Maybe then we can find more chocolate for both of us if we get too sad.”

Laughing, Ashe nodded. “Alright, sure thing, then. I’ll hold you to your word on that.” She cleared her throat, setting herself up on a desk that they had moved out of the way and resting the guitar on her legs. She breathed in deeply, beginning to play. Her tune was a melancholy one, with clear sadness and pain behind each pluck of the string.

_“There is a house in New Orleans they call the Rising Sun,_ ” she sang, her voice low and haunting. Part of it was angelic, the way she sang with the sort of emotion that Blake imagined only came when the lyrics matched a life. “ _And it’s been the ruin of many a poor girl, and me, oh God, I’m a-one._ ”

Ashe’s song continued to another verse, relaying a tale of how she – either the woman in the lyrics or Ashe herself, Blake didn’t know – had been led astray, hadn’t listened to her mother and regretted how she wasn’t at home today. Ashe’s voice lifted each word up, a melody wrought with a beautiful sadness, and even though she had never once thought of running away with a gambler, Blake could feel herself moved by the song.

“ _I’m going back to New Orleans, my race is almost run. I’m going back to spend my life beneath that Rising Sun,”_ Ashe finished, playing out the song with a flourish on the guitar that ended with a finality of a fate worse than death.

“Wow,” Blake finally said after a full minute of sitting there in silence. “I’m… amazed. That was really good, Ashe.”

Ashe smiled, shrugging as she put the guitar away. “Ah, wasn’t anything special. Come on, we ought to sleep. We’ll be warming if we get real close to each other, too.”

“Okay,” Blake said, opening up her own blanket as she and Ashe tried to wrangle the two over one another and maximize the warmth. Their pillow was a third blanket that Blake had managed to find, an equally scratchy woolen one that provided little in the way of comfort. Right now, it was better than nothing.

With how close they were, Blake could smell Ashe’s shampoo, lilacs and roses mixing together like the one she had on her arm. Even in the dark, she could tell Ashe put in a good amount of time into her makeup, as immaculate as she had ever seen out of any girl she knew, including herself. Blake tried to close her eyes and sleep, but there wasn’t much to be had tonight. Between Ashe giving her the chocolate, calming her down when she was at her worst, and entertaining her requests for a song, something sparked in her. She couldn’t help but look at Ashe far differently than she had when they first met.

It looked like Ashe had caught on to this. She sighed, slowly opening her eyes. “Something on your mind?”

Blake felt her cheeks heat up, a sudden knot in her throat. She had these same absurd reactions when she was talking to Ren earlier today. “Uh… okay, so… don’t get mad at me…”

“You ain’t done anything wrong by me, but go ahead.”

“I… really don’t know if it’s because I’ve had such a shitty day, or if there’s like… actually _something_ , or _what_ , but… I think I really like you.”

Ashe said nothing, only softly breathing for a few moments. She didn’t look at Blake, only staring at some part of the wall behind them. Finally, she wet her lips, matching Blake’s gaze. “Honestly… I’m kind of glad, because I was worried you wouldn’t much like me after you talked about that guy.”

“Why wouldn’t I like you?” Blake asked, frowning. “I mean, you’re pretty, you can sing, and… you seem like a really nice person.”

Ashe scoffed, shaking her head. “Like I said. Lot of people don’t think of me like that. I’m kind of a bitch to everyone, and… well, I kinda like it that way. People don’t mess with me, I mess with them if they do. I don’t think a lot of people _here_ like me much.”

“But you said you had that boyfriend,” Blake said. “Didn’t he like you? I mean, he had to, right?”

“He liked everything _but_ me,” Ashe said wryly. “He liked Daddy’s money, the people Daddy knew, _who_ I was, but not _me._ When I broke his hands, that was kind of the last straw for him.”

Blake blinked, trying to follow the logic. “But then… what does-”

“Look, point is, I like you too, and you like me. Forget about that clown from today, alright? We’ll be ourselves, just like we are, in this corner and if anyone wants to tell us we’re wrong? I’ll beat the shit out of them for both of us.”

The rain continued to pour down, beating against the window as Blake found herself sighing wistfully. She looked at Ashe feeling the same warmth in her heart that had come whenever she saw Ren passing by in the hall, the same feeling that came to her mind when she found herself thinking of him on any random day. But instead of Ren, her mind was flooded with images of her and Ashe, visions of her hand in hand with Blake as they strolled down Greenfield’s campus without a care in the world.

“Ashe,” Blake quietly said, suddenly feeling every muscle in her body tense up. “Is it okay if I kiss you?”

Now it was Ashe’s turn to have her face become beet red, suddenly embarrassed by the question. “Uh, I… okay, yeah. Yeah, you can kiss me.”

The two shared a nervous giggle, before closing the distance between them as well as their eyes. Ashe’s lips were soft, and she put a hand on Blake’s face with a gentleness that betrayed the barbed exterior she presented to the world. Blake’s heart fluttered like it had gone to be with the birds, and for the first time this night, she felt safe and comforted.

Slowly, they slipped out of the kiss, sharing the same stupid smile as they touched foreheads. Blake let out a contented sigh, giggling like an idiot and wishing she could go back in for another kiss.

“Hey, when this is all over,” Ashe said quietly, as if they weren’t the only people in this entire building, “we’ll do something legit. Like, a really nice date. I promise.”

“Okay,” Blake said, still smiling. “Okay, I’ll hold you to it. I’m so lucky I met you tonight, Ashe.”

Ashe sighed, pulling her close as their hair mixed with one another. Her embrace was easily far better than any blanket or bed, and even as the weather raged outside, Blake knew she was safe and protected in here with Ashe. “We’re both lucky tonight, Blake.”


End file.
